The invention generally relates to the field of entertainment, and more particularly to an Internet-based entertainment application which offers participants the opportunity to win or earn cash and prizes.
The number of sites on the world wide web (WWW) has grown to such an extent that xe2x80x98surfing the netxe2x80x99 has become a hobby and a form of entertainment unto itself Today, Internet users can conveniently shop, bank, invest, play on-line games, and gamble, not too mention obtain news, music and information on just about any topic over the Internet. Indeed, the Internet has become so versatile that it has often been dubbed as the xe2x80x98new mediaxe2x80x99.
One goal of many Internet content providers is to attract as many visitors as possible to their sites. This is particularly important for content providers whose businesses are based at least in part on an advertising model. In this model, the content provider places sought-after or popular content on its web site which typically may be freely accessed by visitors. Each web page is typically associated with an advertising banner so that visitors simultaneously view advertisements while accessing the site. Advertisers pay the content provider for the privilege of having the advertisements shown on the popular site. Examples of companies which employ this business model include the so called xe2x80x98portalxe2x80x99 companies such as Yahoo Inc. and Lycos Inc. which, among other items, offer free search engines for finding content on the web.
Some content providers elicit at least a portion of the very content they publish or distribute over the Internet from persons accessing or using their sites. This may occur with web sites which offer discussion groups or forums relating to investing, cooking, gardening or other such leisure activity, or with web sites which provide literature, music or humour to visitors. Such sites may employ various means to encourage user participation and contribution of material. For instance, NetCustomize Corporation of New York, N.Y. offers a free joke service at www.elol.com through which participants (i.e., persons who have directly or indirectly registered at the site) may periodically receive jokes electronically according to user-settable parameters. Participants are encouraged to submit jokes to the site through the use of a reward scheme. More particularly, a contest is held for the best submitted joke in a given month and the winner is awarded a cash prize. Participants also receive loyalty points based on the number and quality of jokes they submit. Those who have accumulated a predetermined number of points are entered into a random draw contest with the winner receiving a cash prize.
The above scheme for encouraging participation in an entertainment application and others like it typically set the prizes available to be won at a relatively modest level. For instance, prizes typically range in the few hundred to perhaps a few thousand dollars, with only the most popular sites being able to offer very large prizes. With the phenomenal growth of the internet, both in terms of the number of users as well as the number of content providers, such schemes for attracting user participation have their limits. This is because the prizes available to potential participants are relatively modest enough so as to not make it worthwhile for individuals to bother to participate. Furthermore, the contest-based approach to attracting users and encouraging their contributions necessarily means that only a relatively small number of individuals will win any prizes. Given that the chances for winning a prize are relatively small, there may not be sufficient incentive to attracting users and maintaining their participation.
The invention seeks to overcome various limitations of the prior art. Generally speaking the invention provides a method and system for entertaining persons over the Internet or other such computer network and enabling them to win or earn cash or prizes based on how other participants perceive them in a particular activity or endeavour. In this sense the system offers rewards based on the participant""s effort or merit.
According to one broad aspect of the invention, an Internet site is provided which is configured to enable a given participant to interact therewith in a predefined manner and to enable other participants to view the given participant""s interaction with said site. Each participant is granted credits based on his or her participation level with the site. A given participant is able to transfer his or her credits to another participant. Each user is able to periodically exchange accumulated credits, if any, for valuable consideration such as cash or prizes.
In one variant of the invention, the Internet site functions as a forum where participants may post or submit content to the site and view the submissions of others.
In the embodiment of this variant exemplified herein, the topic of the forum is humour, and the Internet site is configured to enable participants to submit jokes or other amusing works as well as view what has been submitted by others. In the exemplified embodiment, participants are charged a fee for accessing the Internet site. The access fees paid by each participant determines the amount of credit that individual receives. In this sense, the access fees represent the participation level of each user. Each participant also receives the ability to cast votes, wherein each vote represents a predetermined number of credits. Participants may cast one or more votes for any joke, and the participant who has submitted a voted-for joke will receive the corresponding vote. This enables participants to accumulate votes received from others and redeem them for cash or free access to the site. In this manner a given participant is able to transfer his or her credits to another participant as a reward for the quality (or perhaps lack thereof!) of the other participant""s submissions.
The exemplified embodiment thus simultaneously provides two sometimes contradictory objectives for encouraging participation. On the one hand, if a participant submits a wickedly funny joke (or other item in a different forum), he or she has the potential to accrue many votes and hence redeem substantially more money than what it cost the participant to play. On the other hand, because each participant is able to redeem accumulated votes, each participant has the potential for winning or earning something. This will ameliorate the futility felt by the unlucky majority in winner-take-all contests.
In another variant of the invention, the Internet site is configured to enable participants to interact with a video game hosted on the site. In the embodiment exemplified herein of this variant, participants are charged a fee for accessing the Internet site. Once they have entered the site, each participant may separately and individually play the hosted video game. The score of each player is recorded and stored. Other players are notified of the highest scores and the identity of the corresponding participants. However, the ability for a first participant to view a second participant""s game play is blocked unless the first participant has transferred a predetermined amount of credit to the second participant. In this manner, participants who are good at playing the game can achieve financial reward by garnering a paying audience who wish to see or learn how to play the game to its full extent.